Surface pasteurization of fresh pomelo juice vesicles by gaseous chlorine dioxide

Abstract This study developed an in‐package pasteurization method that released gaseous chlorine dioxide (ClO 2 ) triggered when moisture vapor from the fresh produce interacted with a ClO 2 precursor. The samples were placed in sealed containers (750 ml) containing mixtures (0.1–1.0 g) of sodium chlorite and citric acid powders (1:1) and treated for up to 15 min at 25°C. Our results showed that, production of gaseous ClO 2 was linearly correlated with the reaction time ( R 2 >0.95) with mean concentrations in the range of 1.70 – 8.66 mg/L. The gaseous ClO 2 treatments for 15 min significantly reduced Escherichia coli and fungi populations on pomelo juice vesicles with reductions of 6 and 2 log CFU/g, respectively. Perchlorate and chlorite in samples were not detected, and chlorate was only detected when the mean ClO 2 concentration was over 4.09 mg/L. The treatments did not significantly affect total soluble solids, total acids, pectin and malondialdehyde contents, and color of pomelo juice vesicles. The contents of ascorbic acid, naringin, and limonin, and bitterness score decreased with the increase of mean ClO 2 concentrations. Overall, our results demonstrate an effective nonthermal approach for microbial inactivation while maintaining the quality of fresh pomelo juice vesicles.